PORT TOWNSEND — A dive team has found the ship’s bell of the SS Governor, which sank off Point Wilson 90 years ago.
Divers from the Maritime Documentation Society found the bell Sunday, said Robert Wilson of Marysville, who, along with Benjamin Nussbaum of Lynnwood, discovered the bell buried in silt 240 feet below the Admiralty Inlet surface.
“One of the things you always look for is the ship’s bell,” said Wilson, the spokesman for the group of shipwreck divers dedicated to documenting the history of maritime disasters.
“This is the holy grail of all shipwreck artifacts,” agreed Dan Warter, vice president of the Maritime Documentation Society and one of three partners of DCS Films.
Waved over by the two divers who found the bell, Warter documented the find on video.
A sunken ship’s bell “is what is sought after on any major maritime disaster,” Warter said.
“It’s kind of the monument of the shipwreck,” he said, adding that ship’s bells often are exhibited in museums while copies are made and engraved with the date of the shipwreck.
“It’s a really big thing to find,” Warter said.
The Governor, a steamship on a routine run to Seattle from San Francisco, sank at 12:04 a.m. Friday, April 1, 1921.
Eight of the 240 people aboard did not survive.
The Governor had just dropped off some passengers in Victoria before heading southeast toward Puget Sound.
As the ship rounded Port Townsend, the SS West Hartland, which was leaving Port Townsend for India, rammed into the Governor amidships on her starboard side, ripping open a 10-foot gash in the iron hull.
Reports later said the Governor’s pilot mistook the West Hartland’s running lights for fixed lights on Marrowstone Point and so didn’t yield the right of way.
Maritime Documentation Society divers have examined the shipwreck at least annually for years, Wilson said.
But it was not until Wilson’s 13th successful dive in 10 years that the bell was found.
“It was half-buried” on its side, Wilson said. “We pulled it out of sand and set it out.”
“It was just barely sticking out, but the profile was a shape of a bell, so we started digging,” Nussbaum said.
They removed it from the stoned-littered bottom, and as the disturbed silt settled, the shape of the bell emerged.
“We were frantically waving our lights to get the videographer [Warter] over to capture some video,” Wilson said.
Wilson described the bell as “probably 18 inches across at the base and foot tall.
“It’s heavy, real heavy,” he added.
The dive to the Governor is considered “the Mount Everest of diving,” Warter said, because of the historic nature of the sunken ship and the hazardous conditions of the area.
“It’s basically the Titanic in our backyard and one of the most difficult dives in the world,” Warter said.
Visibility is low, and currents come from four directions.
“You really have to be on your game to be able to dive that wreck,” Warter said.
“Our group does it every year, and we are probably one of the only groups who do it every year.”
Dives generally can be done only once or twice annually — only when all four measuring stations show slack currents.
“We’re checking to see if we have another open current window this year,” Warter said.
Salvage rights to the wreck of the Governor are owned by Bob Mester and Mark Allen of Underwater Admiralty Sciences.
“That is some great news,” Warter reported Mester as saying when he heard the bell had been found.
Divers and owners are now discussing the bell’s future, Warter and Wilson said.
Mester and Allen could not be reached for comment this week.
The divers hope to see the bell recovered, cleaned up and placed on display.
“It’d be nice to keep it in Port Townsend,” Warter said.
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
